Motivated by G2-manifolds with coassociative fibrations in the adiabatic limit, Donaldson and Scaduto conjectured the existence of associative submanifolds homeomorphic to a three-holed 3-sphere with three asymptotically cylindrical ends in X \times R^3, where X is an A2-type ALE hyperkähler manifold. We prove this conjecture by solving a real Monge-Ampère equation with singular right hand side. The method produces many other asymptotically cylindrical U(1)-invariant special Lagrangians in X \times R^2, where X arises from the Gibbons-Hawking construction. This is joint work in progress with Saman Habibi Esfahani.

The ADM mass of an isolated gravitational system is a geometric invariant measuring the total mass due to matter and other fields. In a previous work, we showed how to compute this invariant (in 3 spatial dimensions) by studying harmonic functions. Now I'll use this formula to consider the question: How flat is an asymptotically flat manifold with very little total mass? In the presence of a lower bound on Ricci curvature, we make progress on this question and confirm special cases of conjectures made by Ilmanen and Sormani.

A 4-manifold is said to have positive biorthogonal curvature if the average of sectional curvatures of any pair of orthogonal planes is positive. In this talk, I will describe a construction of metrics with positive biorthogonal curvature on the product of spheres, and then combine it with recent surgery stability results of Hoelzel to classify (up to homeomorphism) the closed simply-connected 4-manifolds that admit a metric with positive biorthogonal curvature.

The colored Jones polynomials are conjectured to detect geometric information about knot complements, such as hyperbolic volume. These relationships ("volume conjectures") are known in a number of special cases but are in general quite mysterious. In this talk I will discuss a program to better understand them by constructing holonomy invariants, which depend on both a knot K and a representation of its knot group into SL_2(C). By defining a version of the Jones polynomial that knows about geometric data, we hope to better understand why the ordinary Jones polynomial does too. Along the way we can obtain more powerful quantum invariants of knots and other topological objects.

We call a non-trivial homology 3-sphere a Kirby-Ramanujam sphere if it bounds a homology plane, an algebraic complex smooth surface with the same homology groups of the complex plane. In this talk, we present several infinite families of Kirby-Ramanujam spheres bounding Mazur type 4-manifolds, compact contractible smooth 4-manifolds built with only 0-, 1-, and 2-handles. Such an interplay between complex surfaces and 4-manifolds was first observed by Ramanujam and Kirby around nineteen-eighties. This is upcoming joint work with Rodolfo Aguilar Aguilar.

Geometric evolution equations like the Ricci flow and the mean curvature flow play a central role in differential geometry. The main problem is to understand singularity formation. In this talk, I will discuss recent results which give a complete picture of all the possible limit flows in 2D mean curvature flow with positive mean curvature, and in 3D Ricci flow.

In this talk, I will present some new topological obstructions for solving the Einstein equations (in Riemannian signature) on a large class of closed four-manifolds. Finally, I will show that complex-hyperbolic Einstein Dehn filling compactification cannot possibly performed in dimension four. This is in striking contrast with the real-hyperbolic case, and it answers (negatively) a fifteen years old question of Michael Anderson. If time permits, I will conclude with some tantalizing open problems both in dimension four and in higher dimensions. Part of this work is joint with M. Golla (Universit\�??e de Nantes).

The classical Euclidean problem studied by Bonnet in the 19th century was to determine whether, and in how many ways, a Riemannian surface can be isometrically embedded into Euclidean 3-space so that its mean curvature is a prescribed function. He found that, generically, specifying a metric and mean curvature admitted no solution but that there are special cases in which, not only are there solutions, but there are even 1-parameter families of distinct (i.e., mutually noncongruent) solutions. Much later, these �?Bonnet surfaces�? were found to be intimately connected with integrable systems and Lax pairs. In this talk, I will consider the analogous problem in affine geometry: To determine whether, and in how many ways, a surface endowed with a Riemannian metric g and a function H can be immersed into affine 3-space in such a way that the induced Blaschke metric is g and the induced affine mean curvature is H. This affine problem is, in many ways, richer and more interesting than the corresponding Euclidean problem. I will classify the pairs (g,H) that display the greatest flexibility in their solution space and explain what is known about the (suspected) links with integrable systems and Lax pairs.

Over a field k, the zeroth homotopy group of the motivic sphere spectrum is given by the Grothendieck-Witt ring of symmetric bilinear forms GW(k). The Grothendieck-Witt ring GW(k) modulo the hyperbolic plane is isomorphic to the Witt ring of symmetric bilinear forms W(k) which further surjectively maps to Z/2. We may take motivic Eilenberg-Maclane spectra of Z/2, W(k) and GW(k). Voevodsky has computed the motivic Steenrod algebra of HZ/2 and solved the Bloch-Kato conjecture with its help. We move one step up in the above picture; we study the motivic Eilenberg-Maclane spectrum corresponding to the Witt ring and compute its dual Steenrod algebra.

Some physically significant solutions to Einstein's field equations are spacetimes which are foliated by a family of curves called a shear-free null geodesic congruence (SFNGC). Examples include models of gravitational waves that were recently detected, and rotating black holes. The properties of a SFNGC induce a CR structure on the 3-dimensional leaf space of the foliation. The Kerr Theorem says that the family of metrics associated to a SFNGC contains a conformally flat representative iff the corresponding CR structure is embeddable in a real hyperquadric. Using Cartan's method of moving frames, we can classify which Levi-nondegenerate CR 3-folds are embeddable in the hyperquadric.

One of the central questions in Geometric Analysis is the interplay between the curvature of the manifold and the spectrum of an operator. In this talk, we will be considering the Hodge Laplacian on differential forms of any order $k$ in the Banach Space $L^p$. In particular, under sufficient curvature conditions, it will be demonstrated that the $L^p\,$ spectrum is independent of $p$ for $1\!\leq\!p\!\leq\! \infty.$ The underlying space is a $C^{\infty}$-smooth non-compact manifold $M^n$ with a lower bound on its Ricci Curvature and the Weitzenb\"ock Tensor. The further assumption on subexponential growth of the manifold is also necessary. We will see that in the case of Hyperbolic space the $L^p$ spectrum does in fact depend on $p.$ As an application, we will show that the spectrum of the Laplacian on one-forms has no gaps on certain manifolds with a pole and on manifolds that are in a warped product form. This will be done under weaker curvature restrictions than what have been used previously; it will be achieved by finding the $L^1$ spectrum of the Laplacian.

Though the study of isoperimetric problems for Laplacian eigenvalues dates back to the 19th century, the subject has undergone a renaissance in recent decades, due in part to the discovery of connections with harmonic maps and minimal surfaces. By the combined work of several authors, we now know that unit-area metrics maximizing the first nonzero Laplace eigenvalue exist on any closed surface, and are realized by minimal surfaces in spheres. At the same time, work of Fraser-Schoen, Matthiesen-Petrides and others yields analogous results for the first eigenvalue of the Dirichlet-to-Neumann map on surfaces with boundary, with maximizing metrics induced by free boundary minimal immersions into Euclidean balls. In this talk, I'll describe a series of recent results characterizing the (perhaps surprising) asymptotic behavior of these free boundary minimal immersions (and associated Steklov-maximizing metrics) as the number of boundary components becomes large. (Based on joint work with Mikhail Karpukhin.)

I will discuss some examples of minimal graphs with jump discontinuities in their boundaries. Robert Huff and I constructed these examples in response to a question of John Urbas: Is it possible for a minimal graph over a smooth annular domain to have an isolated jump discontinuity on the inner boundary component? I will also give a brief overview of the boundary consistency problem for Di Giorgi's generalized solutions of the minimal surface equation and discuss this question in that context. The construction of the examples uses the Weierstrass representation and the developing map introduced by Huff in the study of capillary problems.

We will discuss Witten�??s gauge theory approach to Jones polynomial by counting solutions to the Kapustin-Witten (KW) equations with singular boundary conditions over 4-manifolds. We will give a classification of solutions to the KW equations over $S^1\times\Sigma\times R^+$. We prove that all solutions to the KW equations over $S^1\times\Sigma\times R^+$ are $S^1$ direction invariant and we give a classification of the KW monopole over $\Sigma\times R^+$ based on the Hermitian-Yang-Mills type structure of KW monopole equation. This is based on joint works with Rafe Mazzeo.

Thurston's geometrization conjecture and its subsequent proof for Haken manifolds distinguish knots in S^3 by the geometries in the complement of the knots. While the definition of alternating knots make use of nice knot diagrams, Knot Floer homology, a knot invariant toolbox, defined by Ozsvath-Szabo and Rasumussen, generalizes the definition of alternating knots in the context of knot Floer homology and defines family of quasi-alternating knots which contains all alternating knots. Using Lipshitz-Ozsvath-Thurston's bordered Floer homology, we prove a partial affirmation of a folklore conjecture in knot Floer theory, which bridges these two viewpoints of looking at knots.

Homology cobordisms are a special type of manifold which are relevant to a variety of areas in geometric topology, including knot theory and triangulability. We study the behavior of a variety of invariants under a particular family of four-dimensional homology cobordisms which naturally arise from Stein manifolds. This is joint work with Ali Daemi, Jen Hom, Shea Vela-Vick, and Mike Wong.

We introduce a new tool for relating the scalar curvature of a Riemannian manifold to its global geometry and topology, based on the study of level sets of harmonic functions and harmonic maps to the circle. We will explain how these ideas lead to simple new proofs and improvements upon some well-known results in three-manifold geometry and general relativity, previously studied primarily via minimal surface and Dirac operator methods.

The inverse square law is fundamental to our understanding of electromagnetism. The question of the decay of the fields associated to nonabelian gauge theories is more difficult because the equations determining these fields are nonlinear. In this talk, I will discuss recent progress in establishing decay rates for instantons.

Khovanov homology and knot Floer homology are two knot invariants which are defined using very different techniques, with Khovanov homology having its roots in representation theory and knot Floer homology in symplectic geometry. However, they seem to contain a lot of the same topological data about knots. Rasmussen conjectured that this similarity stems from a spectral sequence from Khovanov homology to knot Floer homology. In this talk I will give a construction of this spectral sequence. The construction utilizes a recently defined knot homology theory HFK_2 which provides a framework in which the two theories can be related.

To a cobordism between links, Khovanov homology assigns a linear map that is invariant under boundary-preserving isotopy of the cobordism. In this talk, we study those maps arising from surfaces in the 4-ball and apply our findings to existence and uniqueness questions regarding slice disks bounding a given knot. This reflects joint works with Jonah Swann and Kyle Hayden.

I will describe an upcoming paper with Goncalo Oliveira investigating the properties of Yang-Mills flow on base manifolds with restricted holonomy, generalizing known results from the 4-d and Kahler cases. We show that finite-time blowup is governed by the F^7 component of the curvature in the G_2 and Spin(7) cases, and by the appropriate curvature component in the remaining cases on Berger's list. Assuming that this component remains bounded along the flow, we show that the infinite-time bubbling set is calibrated by the defining (n-4)-form.

The Uniformization Theorem implies that any compact Riemann surface has a constant curvature metric. Kahler-Einstein (KE) metrics are a natural generalization of such metrics, and the search for them has a long and rich history, going back to Schouten, Kahler (30's), Calabi (50's), Aubin, Yau (70's) and Tian (90's), among others. Yet, despite much progress, a complete picture is available only in complex dimension 2. In contrast to such smooth KE metrics, in the mid 90's Tian conjectured the existence of KE metrics with conical singularities along a divisor (i.e., for which the manifold is `bent' at some angle along a complex hypersurface), motivated by applications to algebraic geometry and Calabi-Yau manifolds. More recently, Donaldson suggested a program for constructing smooth KE metrics of positive curvature out of such singular ones, and put forward several influential conjectures. In this talk I will try to give an introduction to Kahler-Einstein geometry and briefly describe some recent work mostly joint with R. Mazzeo that resolves some of these conjectures. One key ingredient is a new C^{2,\alpha} a priori estimate and continuity method for the complex Monge-Ampere equation. It follows that many algebraic varieties that may not admit smooth KE metrics (e.g., Fano or minimal varieties) nevertheless admit KE metrics bent along a simple normal crossing divisor.

We consider an isoperimetric inequality for area minimizing submanifolds $R$ lying outside a convex body $K$ in $\mathbb{R}^{n+1}$. Here $R$ is an $(m+1)$-dimensional submanifold whose boundary consists of a submanifold $T$ in $\mathbb{R}^{n+1} \setminus K$ and a free boundary (possibly not rectifiable) along $\partial K$. An isoperimetric inequality outside a convex body was previously proven by Choe, Ghomi, and Ritore in the codimension one setting where $m = n$. We extend their result to higher codimension. A key aspect of the proof are estimates on the concentration of mass of $T$ and $R$ near $\partial K$.

In this talk I will review the construction of the Lie algebra associated to the mapping class group of a (possibly decorated) surface and explain how this generalizes the Lie algebra associated to the pure braid group. I will also explain the analogue of the KZ-equation in the mapping class group case. In the second talk I will discuss filtrations of this Lie algebra associated to curve systems on the surface and their relation to handlebody groups.

It is an interesting well known fact that the relative entropy with respect to the Gaussian measure on $\mathbb{R}^N$ satisfies a simple subadditivity property. Namely, if $\Pi_1^{(i)}(F_N)$ is the first marginal of the density function F_N in the i-th variable then \begin{equation} \sum_{i=1}^N H(\Pi_1^{(i)}(F_N) | \gamma_1) \leq H(F_N | \gamma_N), \end{equation} where $\gamma_k$ is the standard Gaussian on $\mathbb{R}^k$. Surprisingly enough, when one tries to achieve a similar result on $\mathbb{S}^{N-1}(\sqrt{N})$ a factor of 2 appears in the right hand side of the inequality (a result due to Carlen, Lieb and Loss), and the constant is sharp. Besides a deviation from the simple equivalence of ensembles principle in equilibrium Statistical Mechanics, this entropic inequality on the sphere has interesting ramifications in other fields, such as Kinetic Theory. In this talk we will present conditions on the density function F_N, on the sphere, under which we can get an �?almost�? subaditivity property; i.e. the factor 2 can be replaced with a factor of $1+\epsilon_N$, with $\epsilon_N$ given explicitly and going to zero. The main tools to be used in order to proved this result are an entropy conservation extension of F_N to $\mathbb{R}^N$ together with comparison of appropriate transportation distances such as the entropy, Fisher information and Wasserstein distance between the marginal of the original density and that of the extension. Time permitting, we will give an example, one that arises naturally in the investigation of the so-called Kac Model, to many families of functions that satisfy these conditions.

The Yamabe invariant of a closed manifold appears naturally when studying the total scalar curvature functional on the space of Riemannian metrics on the manifold. Computations are difficult, in particular in the positive case (when the manifold admits metrics of positive scalar curvarture, and there is no unicity of metrics of constant scalar curvature on a conformal class). In this talk I will review a little of what is known about the computation of the invariant and discuss some recent joint work with K. Akutagawa and L. Florit on the Yamabe constants of Riemannian products.

In this talk I will review the construction of the Lie algebra associated to the mapping class group of a (possibly decorated) surface and explain how this generalizes the Lie algebra associated to the pure braid group. I will also explain the analogue of the KZ-equation in the mapping class group case. In the second talk I will discuss filtrations of this Lie algebra associated to curve systems on the surface and their relation to handlebody groups.

CR geometry studies boundaries of domains in C^n and their generalizations. A central role is played by the Levi form L of a CR manifold M, which measures the failure of the CR bundle to be integrable, so that when L has a nontrivial kernel of constant rank, M is foliated by complex manifolds. If the local transverse structure to this foliation still determines a CR manifold N, then we say M is CR-straightenable, and the Tanaka-Chern-Moser classification of CR hypersurfaces with nondegenerate Levi form can be applied to N. It remains to classify those M for which L is degenerate and no such straightening exists. This was accomplished in dimension 5 by Ebenfelt, Isaev-Zaitzev, and Medori-Spiro. I will discuss their results as well as my recent progress on the problem in dimension 7 (http://arxiv.org/abs/1511.04019).

In this talk, I will discuss the Seiberg-Witten equations on finite volume Riemannian manifolds which are diffeomorphic to the product of two hyperbolic Riemann surfaces of finite topological type. Finally, using a Seiberg-Witten scalar curvature estimate I will present several results concerning the Riemannian geometry of these spaces.

We will start by discussing a flow of isometric $G_2$ structures. We consider the negative gradient flow of the energy functional restricted to the class of $G_2$ structures inducing a given Riemannian metric. We will discuss various analytic aspects of the flow including global and local derivative estimates, a compactness theorem and a monotonicity formula for the solutions. After defining an entropy functional we will prove that low entropy initial data lead to solutions that exist for all time and converge smoothly to a $G_2$ structure with divergence free torsion. We will also discuss finite time singularities and the singular set of the solutions. Finally, we will discuss the isometric flow "coupled�?� with the Ricci flow of the underlying metric, which again is a flow of $G_2$ structures, and discuss some of its properties. This is a based on two separate joint works with Panagiotis Gianniotis (University of Athens) and Spiro Karigiannis (University of Waterloo).